Horse welfare is complex, partly due to the myriad uses, values, and husbandry arrangements for horses. They’re backyard pets, ridden and driven in competition, raced, raised for meat, and used for therapy, recreation, and rodeo. Horses are regularly transported, kept in rural and urban areas, stalls, pens, fields, and pastures, plus managed according to their use. Many horses live on individual properties and their welfare relies on individual owners, making poor welfare difficult to identify.

Keeping horses sound is one of the most difficult and important aspects of horse sport. Given that horses have an uncanny ability to injure themselves, at some point every rider or horse owner will need their veterinarian to conduct a lameness evaluation.

Can you get a disease from your horse? Yes, but the good news is that direct horse-to-human disease transmission is rare. Here’s a quick refresher on some bacterial, fungal, parasitic, and viral diseases that can potentially be transmitted to us directly from the equines in our lives. This list does not include diseases like West Nile virus that can be passed indirectly from horses to humans, for example through an insect bite.

What do you do when a horse at your boarding barn has been diagnosed with strangles? How is it treated and managed? How vulnerable is your own horse to getting strangles? And how do you know when the sick horse is truly disease-free?